


Burning Bright

by ausmac



Category: Warcraft (2016)
Genre: M/M, Transformation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-25
Updated: 2017-08-31
Packaged: 2018-12-06 15:18:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 14
Words: 20,198
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11603325
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ausmac/pseuds/ausmac
Summary: Set in the post-Warcraft movieverse:  Khadgar is captured by Gul'dan, who forces changes on him that he would never have considered or believed.  Until they happen...





	1. Tiger, Tiger

**Author's Note:**

> I know, I have a few other things to finish (working on them, I promise!) but this idea came to me and since I haven't written Khadgar for a while, I thought it might be a way to get me back into his character and motivations. And its sort of fun (:

Thinking back, he knew it had been dumb idea.

 

Lothar had ordered him not to go, in no uncertain terms.  “You are NOT going anywhere near that Portal alone.  You aren’t going anywhere near it with an army at your back.  I’d like you to be on another continent, in fact.” 

He’d sighed and affected the poor-put-upon-young-mage look.  It usually worked.  Not this time, however.  “Don’t give me that look.  Listen to what I’m saying.  Just once.”

“But I can close it.  I know I can.”  Khadgar started to whine in frustration.  “If I can get close enough I can shatter the energy matrix and the whole thing will come down.  I can save thousands of lives, dammit!”

But no amount of whining, discussion or pleading would change the Lord Commander’s mind.  Finally he’d taken Khadgar’s face in both hands and kissed him till he shut up.  That was an underhanded ploy because the touch of that mouth usually had every thought go out of his head and rush down to his groin.  “Obey me on this.”  He’d smiled, kissed Khadgar beneath one ear, and whispered,   “You have an annoying mouth, except on very intimate occasions.”  He drew back and his expression grew grim.  “I’m serious though.  Don’t go near that damned orc.  Be sensible, just once.”

He really should have listened to that voice of common sense.  It might have been ego, because he knew he was good and believed in what he’d said to Lothar.  And he probably could have done it, if he hadn’t been found before he even got close.  The orcs who took him didn’t given him time to do more than raise his arms and begin to chant.  The ones in front roared to catch Khadgar’s attention and it was the one behind who clouted him off his horse and into unconsciousness.  He hardly had time to consider how stupid he was….

 

* * *

 

  
Waking hurt.  A lot of him hurt, but it was a good sign.  He couldn’t feel pain if he was dead, right?  At least, he hoped not.  Khadgar carefully opened one eye.   Hide walls curving up to a peaked ceiling.  Beads and bones hung from the crossbeams like ugly wind chimes.  It all screamed orc.  And then a familiar green figure moved into his line of sight.

“Khadgar.  What have you done!”

Garona.  He licked dry lips and coughed, tried to wipe his face only to realise his hands were tied, that he was on the ground with his arms backwards around a pole.  “Something really stupid,” he whispered, eyes half closing at the sudden shot of head pain.   
She hunched down to bring her eyes closer to my level.  “Does Lothar know you’re here?”  She didn’t even wince when she said his name, but me did.

“Weellll…not exactly.”

She shook her head, the beaded earrings swinging together musically.  “You’re a fool.  To let yourself be captured by Gul’dan’s orcs.  You’ll be lucky to outlive the day.”  She reached out and patted his leg.  “I don’t know if I can save you.  And even if I can, you may not like what survival will cost you.”

He didn’t like the sound of that.  Before he could question her, or ask why she would want to save him,  an unknown orc pushed through the partly open tent flap.  “Bring him,” he said, and waited while Garona untied Khadgar from the pole.  “Human, I got orders.  If you try to use your magic, I’m to kill you at once.”  He grinned, spittle shining on broken tusks.  “Please try.”

Khadgar didn’t try despite the instinctive urge to pull a portal into existence.  Despite what the rest of the world thought, magic took time, and with a very large and interested orc next to him, flexing its hand around a very intimidating axe the size of his torso, he knew his chances of survival were nil.

When he stepped out of the tent he squinted against the light; the headache was still pounding away at the side of his head.  He was shoved forward past crowds of curious orcs and up to a platform next to the Portal.  When Khadgar was slow to climb the ladder the orc picked him up, slung him over one shoulder like a sack of grain and hoisted himself and Khadgar effortlessly upwards.  He dropped him to the wooden flooring and backed away.

Khadgar raised his eyes carefully and looked up at the ugliest orc he’d ever seen.  It had to be Gul’dan.

He wasn’t as big as some of the orcs, and there was an odd, unbalanced look about him, as if he were hunched sideways.  Large spikes came from his back, his face was a pattern of old scars and his eyes…his eyes glowed Fel-green.  He positively stank of Wrong.  Khadgar had thought corrupted Medivh was bad enough, but Gul’dan had never been human.  He grunted at Khadgar’s study and gave him a crooked smile.

“Don’t like what you see, little human magelet?”

Khadgar shrugged and tucked his hands away behind him so the orc couldn’t see them shake.  “Well, you are pretty ugly.”

The bright eyes became hooded.  “Coming from a human, I will accept that as a compliment.”  His attention switched behind to Garona.  “So, this is the one you spoke of?”

“Yes, Gul’dan.  He is Khadgar.   He was in training to be the next Guardian, after Medivh.”  She stepped forward and stood a little way apart.

“I see.”  Gul’dan nodded, and returned his attention to Khadgar.  “So you thought to study my Portal, young mage?  Did you think, perhaps, that you could destroy it.”  Khadgar shrugged and Gul’dan laughed.  “Vanity, such a human failing.  I should just kill you, I suppose.  I can add your lifeforce to mine and you help power the Portal.”

Garona spoke quietly.  “I had heard from the humans that he was judged to be quite powerful.  They value him highly, especially their Lord Commander.”  She gave a twisted smile.  “Perhaps in more ways than one, if the rumours we have had from captured prisoners is to be believed.”

That made Khadgar ouch mentally.  He saw the interest grow in the Warlock’s eyes.  “Are you his bed pet then, little mage?”  He reached out and stroked Khadgar’s face with one clawed finger, hand sliding down to grip his jaw.  “It will hurt him if you die.”  His head tipped to one side as the pressure on Khadgar’s jaw increased. “It will hurt him more, perhaps, if you don’t.  If I transform you into something no longer human, what a problem you’ll present him with.”

It took him a moment or two to understand what Gul’dan was talking about and then the fear hit his gut.  “You can’t…I’m not an orc….”

Gul’dan waved one hand negligently.  “Yes, I’ve never given the Fel to a human – I’m not entirely sure of the outcome.”  His smile was enthusiastically vicious.  “You won’t mind if I test it on you, will you, young Khadgar?  And should you survive, you’ll make an excellent servant.”

Khadgar glared at him and hissed through gritted teeth.  “You may find me a bit of a challenge.”

“Perhaps.  if you prove to be too much trouble I’ll kill you.  But you overestimate your strength, young one.  And perhaps underestimate the power of the Fel.”

The orcs strapped each of Khadgar’s arms to a post, wrapping his fingers around the wood to prevent him casting.  Garona stood behind Gul’dan, motionless, and Khadgar couldn’t read her.  All he could do was fight the fear down and hold himself steady.

The orc warlock walked away a few paces and collected a goblet from a high table at the foot of the steps.  Gul’dan sliced his arm near the elbow with a claw and raised it above the goblet, letting the thick, green blood drip down into it.  “My blood,” he said, “is infused with the Fel power of the Blood of Mannoroth.  You will drink it, and we will see what it makes of you.”  He smiled as he stepped towards Khadgar, the goblet grasped in both big hands.  “You should feel honoured.  You will be the first to drink of my blood.”

A tight, cold ball formed in Khadgar’s middle and he fought the bindings despite knowing all too well that they wouldn’t give.  “I’d rather pass on that honour, thanks very much.”

“I’m sure you would.  Choice,” Gul’dan said, as he pried Khadgar’s jaws apart with the fingers of one hand, “is the first of many things lost to you.”  And he tipped up the goblet and carefully poured the noxious liquid into Khadgar’s open mouth.

Khadgar tried to spit it out but his mouth was held closed and Gul’dan pinched his nose to stop him breathing.  At the same time, he handed the empty goblet to Garona and massaged Khadgar’s face and throat until a combination of pressure and the lack of air forced him to swallow.  It tasted vile as it slid down to his stomach and Gul’dan finally released his head so he could breathe.  Spitting out the remains in his mouth did nothing to ease the blooming pain in his middle and he bit his lip to try and stop from crying out.

And then it consumed him, exploding outwards from his centre in a rush of pain and heat.  He barely felt the bindings being released as he shrieked in pain, arms flailing, staggering, barely able to keep upright.  Every nerve fired, sending crazed messages to his brain; he was on fire, he was freezing, things were biting him, acid was eating at his innards, nightmare things were swarming around his head as every hair on his body stood on end.  He tried to vomit but his stomach cramped in an insane act of rebellion, keeping what had been put there inside him.  His vision distorted, going pink and red and then fading to pale shades of green.  Khadgar realised in a moment of clarity that he’d gone almost colour blind, that the world was now black, grey and white with shades of green, bleached of reality’s gentler hues.

His sense of time distorted along with everything else.  It could have been seconds or hours later that he finally surfaced from the agonised confusion into some form of coherence.  He was standing naked and shivering, feet spread wide, arms out and when he tried to take a step, he stumbled.  Hands caught him, held him steady and he lifted an unnaturally heavy head and raised a hand to wipe his eyes.

His large – green – hand. 

Khadgar focused on the…thing…on the end of his arm, twisting it slowly in front of his face.  Is the world green or am I green?  The stupidity of the thought made him chuckle but it sounded crazed and he smothered it.   But even more confusing was the fur…his arm was covered with it, dark green fur marked with lighter patterns like arcane symbols.  I’ll think about that later, was his immediate thought because there were a great many things to think about later and it seemed a small thing compared to the rest.

He flexed his fingers and claws emerged from claw sheaths at the end of each finger and thumb.  They glistened with green blood where they’d broken through the skin of his fingers in their virginal release.  An odd desire to lick them clean was also smothered, though it took more effort.  It was almost…cat-like…that desire to have clean claws…

His inspection was interrupted by a hand grasping his chin, forcing his head up.  “Pay attention, Khadgar, when I speak to you.”

He blinked, focusing on the orc’s features, aware of things he’d not noticed before; the multi-shaded hue of Gul’dan’s eyes, the way Fel drifted around him like pale mist…”What?”

“I said, pay attention.  I am aware you cannot help but be distracted but when I speak you must listen.  Do you understand me?”

He nodded, wavering a little as the movement almost shifted him sideways.  “I understand…the words…”  His voice was a dry croak, several tones deeper than his normal speech. 

“Hmmm.  Hopefully you have not lost intellect with the change.  It happens that way sometimes with orcs.  Garona,” Gul’dan said, still holding Khadgar’s chin, “take him to my tent, have him cleaned, let him rest.  I will call for him when later to commence his training.”

 

* * *

 

It was difficult to concentrate, to find a point to anchor his mind to.  Reality was so altered that it was hard to sort out what his senses were telling him.  But water cascading over his head focused his attention with shocking abruptness.  He yelped; it was cold and clammy and Khadgar shook himself in a wave of movement from head to toe.  Water sprayed out around him and --

“Khadgar, damn it!”

He blinked, lifting a hand to push the mass of dripping hair from his face and saw that his hand and arm were soaked and before he even considered that it was an odd thing to do, he began licking it – running a strangely rough tongue along the fur, pushing the water out and sucking it in as he went.  It seemed perfectly natural to do that and…

“Khadgar!”

He froze and looked across the damp fur to see Garona standing holding a bucket, looking wet and annoyed.  “Ah…Garona…sorry…did I..?”

“Yes, you did.”  She sniffed and grabbed a cloth hanging over a nearby chair.  “You might have needed a wash, but I do not.  Now, stand still and do not shake yourself.”

He nodded silently, hands twitching, tail twitching…tail…He blinked as he caught sight of the tail lashing around his thighs and looked down at in surprise.  “I…appear…to have a tail.”

“Yes, you do.  You have a lot of things you did not have before.  Including apparently a dislike of getting wet.”  Garona stood in front of him with the cloth in her hand and her head to one side, questioningly.  “Will you stand still and let me dry you?  You do not need to lick yourself dry.”

He nodded again, still absorbing the idea of a tail, and noting absently that he was taller than Garona, which wasn’t how it had been, he seemed to recall.  He sniffed and restrained an impulse to lick his still-damp hand as the woman rubbed the cloth over his body.  She worked at him as he’d seen stable hands rub down a horse, briskly and efficiently, apparently unconcerned at his nakedness.  Finally, she seemed satisfied and stood back, making a small huffing sound.  “Well, now you are less wet but in need of a comb.  Sit over there,” she said, pointing to the chair as she dumped the damp cloth on the floor, “and I’ll see to your, ah, pelt.”

That’s what it was, of course, and not thinking about it didn’t make it less so.  As he sat, twitching the tail out of the way, he realised he was covered in dark green fur from his feet to his to shoulders.  The fur was quite short and marked here and there with paler green markings that he could almost read as language, or magic or some specialised marking.  It was longer – he was pleased to note – above his groin, curling there in a way that obscured his genitals.

As Garona set to work on combing the fur, he looked at his arms and legs.  “What am I?  What did that blood do to me?”

The strokes continued as she slid her chair around to his side.  “I am not entirely sure.  You look quite human but then not, exactly.  Bigger, certainly stronger than you were.  But the fur, the tail, your ears – yes, they are rather pointed and they seem to swivel – I have never seen a creature like you.  Your eyes also have changed.  They are green and the pupils are slitted.  Like a cat.”  She ran the comb carefully over his face and lifted his upper lip with one finger.  “You also have quite sharp teeth.”

Garona paused and leant back, studying Khadgar through narrowed eyes, head to one side.  “You are not exactly a cat, or like any other beast I have seen.  But you are strong and, I think, built for speed.  It is as if the felblood has made you into something suitable for a human of your size.  Something that would be quick and agile; you probably have excellent hearing and a good sense of smell too.”  She ran a hand through the thick mane of hair.  “You are very attractive, Khadgar.  Orcs are already large and the felblood makes them even bigger and stronger.  It seems to have worked a different way for you.”

 

* * *

 

He’d never imagined just how distorted the senses could become under the influence of the Fel.

It was perhaps the most disconcerting of the effects for Khadgar, the way the world changed for him. Everything just felt wrong.  Things that would once have smelled bad now seemed pleasant.  He stood by the open doorway and licked an alarmingly long tongue along his arm and it tasted of so many alien flavours it was difficult to catalogue them.  His nostrils twitched – literally moved and expanded – as he took in the air.  He could smell the orcs around him, as well as the reek of burning meat, the smell from a privy hole, decomposition and the sharp smell of blood.   Yet none of the smells were offensive.  In fact, the nearby pile of rotting meat made him salivate.  And that was very disturbing.  He suspected, though, that his new digestive system would take in almost anything and convert it to energy.  The worse it was, the more likely it would be turned to a form of fel power. 

He wasn’t sure how long he stood there observing the world through that new range of senses, but it was dark when he felt a hand light on his arm.  He twitched and looked down into Garona’s intent stare.  “Khadgar – I am to take you back to Gul’dan.”  Her hand tightened for a moment.  “Try and stay calm.”

He gave a short grunt of laughter.  “Wise advice.  I’ll do my best.”


	2. The Capture

Work kept him focussed, kept him from worrying.  But he couldn’t work all day, there were moments when his concentration slipped and the familiar worry clenched at his middle.  

_Where are you?  Are you dead?  Are you captured or lying injured somewhere?_

Over a month since Khadgar had gone missing.  No news was almost worse than knowing for certain.  Lothar scanned every message that came in from scouts or travellers, looking for any hint or sign of him.  He’d left, headed for the orc portal despite Lothar’s orders not to – and disappeared.  But as much as he wanted to leap on his bird and go searching for Khadgar, he couldn’t.  As valuable and special as he was, Khadgar was one person and Lothar had duties and responsibilities to others, to the new Alliance he represented.  To the young King Varian and his mother and sister, for whom he was guardian and carer.  For his own people, in defence of their lands.  Too much weight on his shoulders to just cast it off like old armour and run off to look for one lost mage.  

Lothar sighed and took a drink from his tea mug.  Cold, of course, because he’d let it sit there for too long as he’d worked into the evening, not even bothering to eat.  He had little appetite for food – worrying about someone who had become far too special to him had apparently affected even that.

He went back to his reports, and one in particular was a concern. 

Villages on the outskirts of Lordaeron were reporting deaths and loss of animals to some sort of beast.  Two shepherds had been found dead among the dismembered bits of their herds and a traveller’s remains had been located on the road.  All the deaths and herd losses had been within a few miles of each other.  All showed the signs of savage mauling by some large creature.  Hunters and trackers had gone looking for it and one reported back catching sight of some sort of large cat-like creature, but it had disappeared in the deep woods.  Most worrying of all was the traces of that green Fel substance found on the bodies.  It didn’t sound like an orc but it was obviously connected to the them, and to the creature Gul’dan.

Perhaps it would be a good way to get my mind of Khadgar.  Hunting this thing down, whatever it is, would fulfil a dual purpose.  And if there are any orcs out there, they might have information.  _It isn’t like I need a reason to kill orcs_ …

Once all his morning work was done, Lothar collected a small troop together to go hunting.  He selected the best local trackers he could find, those familiar with the ground and good at tracking creatures from spoor of various types.  He also selected three good warriors and a battle mage, one of the small group that had survived the orc incursions, and they set out on horseback to the last reported sightings.

It was good to get away from the city and the ever-present concerns of his position.  Although the land around Lordaeron wasn’t his home, the woods were close enough to Elwynn to stir a pang of longing, to bring back memories of hunts with Llane and Medivh, of riding like maniacs through the forests and over the green, familiar hills.  All my friends are gone now he thought as he rode along the rough road.  Even Khadgar.  It seems I’ll end my life alone after all…

The day looked to be an uneventful one until one of the trackers called a stop and dismounted.  Kneeling in the rode, he bent to look at barely-visible marks in the dust.  “Something passed here, Lord Commander.  Big paws, lots of scruff marks, heading there,” he continued, pointing into the nearby grove of woods, “and not that long ago.”

“Not a bear or something similar,” Lothar asked as he dismounted, and the tracker stood, wiping his hands on his trousers. 

“No, don’t think so.  It could be what you are after.”  He lifted his head, sniffing the air.  “Smells orcish around here.”  And he grinned, white teeth flashing.  “Just the thing to brighten up a boring ride.” 

“You,” Lothar said, sliding out his sword, “are a man after my own heart.  Lead on, Barker.” 

As usual, the orcs gave no warning of their presence, they erupted from the woods with a roar and a crash.  But Lothar and his people were used to their tactics now and moved quickly to counter them.  The hunters launched their beasts and arrows flew, striking at the four orcs thundering down the slight hill from the tree line.  While they didn’t kill, the arrows slowed them and one fell with an arrow in its groin, howling in fury.  The soldiers formed a shield line and the orcs struck it with a smashing impact but the shields were tipped up and sword slashed out beneath, cutting at their legs, then rolling aside to attack their flanks and rear.

As Lothar swung around to follow the line of defence, a yowling howl sounded behind him, along with a scream from one of the horses.  His head whipped around in time to see a large creature savaging one of the horses, claws and teeth ripping into its throat, blood spraying out from the mortally wounded horse’s body.

It was a nearly fatal distraction.  
   
One of the hunters yelled a warning; he saw a body flying in front of him, and turned as an orc’s axe thudded into Barker’s body.  The hunter had thrown himself in front of the attack to save his Lord Commander and he fell dead even as Lothar’s sword sliced off the orc’s head.

_Stupid, stupid Lothar_!  He raged and snarled, sword slashing left and right as he threw himself into battle against the orcs.  One by one he cut them down until their dead surrounded him.   When he turned back he saw the creature that had almost been his death crouched down behind the horse’s corpse, its face covered in blood, its strange green eyes fixed on his face.

As Lothar moved carefully towards it, sword at the ready, the creature dropped to its hands and knees, tail going between its legs and its ears drawn back.  It whined and Lothar paused – he recognised the stance, it was the sort submissive behaviour shown by pack animals towards more dominant beasts.  Whatever the thing was, it was displaying a desire to submit and not be killed.

“My Lord, be careful, that thing could leap…” 

“Yes, I know.”  He stopped and studied it with a warrior’s eyes.  It was built for speed and agility with its long, strong thigh muscles and muscular back, but at that moment its stance was one of defence, not defiance.  It whimpered again and he noted that its dark green pelt was covered with the marks of previous injuries; patches of pelt torn to show scars, one ear with a piece missing from it, a scar down its face that only just missed one eye.  It had a worn leather collar around its throat bearing metal strips and spikes and a ring that had obviously been used for a chain or strap of restraint.  As he looked it over he noted it was shivering from head to tail, whether from fear or stress he couldn’t tell.

Something prompted him to speak to it.  “Do you understand me?” 

Its ears flickered forward, then back and its head nodded up and down, once.  Yes. 

“You did not attack any of us, so I won’t kill you immediately.  If I restrain you, will you come peacefully?” 

Another nod.  It sat back on its haunches, panting, watching him out of those bright, cat-like yet somehow intelligent eyes.  He was never sure afterward what inspired him to reach out for it as one would to a man, but something told him the creature was more intelligent than a mere beast.  He collected a braced lead from one of the surviving hunters and held it out, carefully moving forward.  “I must attach this to your collar.  Do not resist, I do not wish to hurt you.”

It nodded again and stayed motionless as he slipped the strap onto the collar ring, then stepped back.  “Ellias, get a portal open back to the city.  The rest of you bring the wounded, and arrange to have someone return the horses.”  He twitched the lead and the creature stood slowly, still hunched forward, its tail drawn down beneath its thighs.  He thought in passing that when it stood straight it would be at least as tall as him, though far rangier.  And when the portal was opened, he moved through it with his captive close behind him.

 


	3. D'zer

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> a small chapter, I know, but it felt like a nice break point.

The man had put him in a cage when they arrived at the city.  He didn’t like the cage, didn’t like the iron bars, the feeling of being locked in a box.  He paced back and forth, senses flooded by the smells of the strange place.  Human smells, animal smells…enemy smells.

At least, that was what his master had tried to teach him.  Humans are enemies, he’d said over and over and he was punished when he fought the lessons.  Not that he could argue back, since his master had reduced his ability to speak.  He’d also lost much of the understanding of human speech though he could grasp it if he thought very hard.  Thinking hard often hurt but he’d come to listen with his eyes as much as his ears.  The way they moved, stood, reacted, it conveyed a lot.  Words just filled in the missing bits.

Weary and worn out from the stresses of the day, he sat down on the ground.  It was covered with sawdust that stuck to his fur and licking it clean did no good – it coated his tongue and he had to spit it out, grumbling at the mess it was making.  Did these humans not think what sawdust would do to his coat?  Obviously not.  Stupid people.

Except the big one.  He wasn’t stupid.  He’d sensed something.  He’d sensed that D’zer (the name his master had given him which meant Beast) wasn’t exactly just the beast he’d been named for.  Clever man.  And there was something familiar about him.  Something warm and strong, something commanding that had made D’zer automatically assume the subservient role.  Not that he would have attacked the man unless he was attacked first.

It was the thing that had made his master so angry, his refusal to kill and eat humans.  Time and again he’d tried to make him do it.  It was wrong.  Some part of him said it was wrong.  He wouldn’t do it, and his master punished him for it.  Many beatings he’d taken, many times he’d been whipped and cut and fallen down and left bloody and whining on the ground.  But he never would.  He never gave in, not on that one thing.  A tiny hidden voice in his heart said no, I won’t kill and eat humans no matter what you do.  If he did, he’d be the beast his master had named him for.

He was hungry and thirsty; the little bit of horse he’d managed to eat hadn’t filled even a part of his big hunger.  One of the people had approached with a bowl and he’d snarled instinctively when the stranger got too close and it had backed away.  It didn’t smell right, that person, it smelled of sweat and fear and dislike.  After a very long time – maybe it was a long time, it was hard to tell – the big man came back and he slid into submission, face pressed to the cage bars, trying to show him how good he was, how well behaved and how very hungry and thirsty.

The man spoke lots of words and some of them made sense, something about behaving, not growling at something, and he huffed out a frustrated sigh.  Eventually the big man came back with the bowl and pushed it through the bars, filled it with water from his flask and D’zer sat lapping it up gratefully.  He felt a hand on his head but it smelled of the man so he just continued drinking, rumbling happily as his thirst was finally gone.  When the bowl was empty he sat back on his haunches and tried to lick his face but the sawdust was there and he shook his head in annoyance.  Another plate appeared, this one with fresh meat on it – pig by the smell of it – and he settled down to eat in his usual fastidious way.  It hadn’t been possible to be always so, sometimes meals had been grabbed and downed in a hurry, to swallow them before something else tried to take them away.  This time he was alone, the plate was all his and he had time to sit and eat it from his hands, biting off chunks and chewing them slowly to savour their taste, to be warmed by the blood as it slipped down his throat.

When he was finished he carefully licked his hands and wiped his face clean, aware that the big man was watching him.  He seemed puzzled, his head to one side in the way of uncertainty and D’zer took the empty plate, licked clean as protocol required, and pushed it through the bars to him.  He smiled his thanks, showing only the tips of his teeth lest it be seen as a challenge.

The big man hunched down outside the bars so that their faces were level, and put a hand to his own chest and said a word.  Lothar.  Then he pointed to D’zer, his expression questioning.  Ah, we exchange names.  He put a hand to his own chest and said “D’zer”.  The man pointed to him and repeated the name with a questioning lift of his voice and D’zer nodded in confirmation.  It was one of the few words he could speak, one of the few his master had allowed him.  His name, please, beg, hungry.  A few words that were all the ones his master thought he needed.   
The Lothar didn’t know of course, and he tried to get more words from D’zer until he finally put a hand to his mouth and shook his head.  He repeated the gesture until Lothar understood.  No more words, no more speech.  He seemed unhappy about it, but what could one do?  No matter that the Lothar was the superior, D’zer couldn’t find more words for him where there were none.

It was strange being where there was no Fel.  Well, other than the Fel inside him, of course.  That was always there, clouding his mind so that his memories were fractured and lost.  What his life had between before his master he didn’t know.  Sometimes, when he slept, he would see visions but they mostly vanished when he woke.  But the Fel was always there, down in his mind and body, the real beast inside him.  It urged him to do things he knew were wrong.  It liked pain, the Fel, liked him to hurt others, liked him to be hurt.  But the Fel gave him strength, made him fast, powerful.  His master had been him teaching him about the Fel and he thought one day he would have been able to use it directly as his master did.  For the time being he would keep it under control. So how he was to assure this Lothar man that he wasn’t dangerous to him, D’zer didn’t know.  He was glad to be free of the orcs, of the pain and misery they’d inflicted on him.  He thought the Lotar would be better for him.  He liked the smell of him, the look of him.  He was strong, and sure of himself, confident and powerful.  He was a worthier master.

All he could do was try and show him with the language of his body, by showing his subservience, assuring the Lothar of his dominant position.  When he lifted his head, the Lothar’s hand was still there and daringly, carefully, he pressed his face to it, and licked it.  The human froze, obviously surprised, and then the fingers stroked his head and he hummed his pleasure.

Perhaps he might have found a place to live that wasn’t all terrible. Except, maybe, for the sawdust.


	4. Varian

Lothar had a great many duties to occupy his time, but he found himself spending far more of it than he should watching D’zer.  He’d find himself walking that way on the way to somewhere else, even if heading that way was directly opposite to his intended destination.  Any excuse was, it seemed, sufficient to detour there.  He wasn’t even sure why.  The creature was fascinating, of course, so alien and unusual but it wasn’t purely that.  There was something in those cat-like green eyes that drew him in, and it – he – was always almost pathetically pleased to see him.  

It was fairly obvious, even without D’zer being able to say so, that he hated the cage.  He hated the bars, the confinement, the uncomfortable sawdust that he was constantly trying to clean from his coat.  Whenever Lothar arrived he’d drop down to his haunches and whine and push his clawed hands through the cage bars seeking touch.  There was nothing dangerous about him in those moments, just something that needed comforting.  But it was only Lothar’s touch he sought, anyone else he snarled at, showing his sharp teeth, his ears drawn back and eyes narrowed, the thick dark green mane standing up around his head.  Lothar, apparently, fitted into some necessary spot in his world view and only for Lothar was he approachable.

So he had to be there when D’zer was fed and watered, to be there to control him and attach a braced lead to his collar and take him out of the cage for it to be cleaned.  He didn’t much like Manion, the servant ordered to attend to his needs and on one occasion he’d peed on the man when he’d ventured too close.  Apparently that was almost as satisfying as biting him, for he'd given the infuriated man a wide, toothy grin, his tail moving in slow swipes around his thighs with every indication of a happy creature.

"Well, good afternoon to you, D'zer.  Have you been behaving yourself today?  No more pissing on your handlers?"  He glanced across at Manion working in one of the nearby stable stalls and looked back at the sound of a deep chuckle.  Yes, it had certainly been the sound of amusement.  "You definitely aren’t housebroken, are you."

A pair of wide, innocent eyes looked up at him and the expressive ears twitched forward and back.  He'd come to recognise the looks over the days.  "No, I'm not taking you out this afternoon, I've too much to do.  Don't even know why I am here, in fact, instead of doing it."  He slid down into a comfortable slouch next to the bars and D'zer collapsed against the metal, one hand pushed through a gap towards him.  He took the hand and studied it, turning it over, taking the opportunity for a close inspection.  D'zer didn’t seem to mind, he just sat there watching everything that Lothar did with that primal, centred attention of his.

The hand was almost human in appearance, though a bit larger.  The skin of the palm was slightly abraded, the finger pads calloused, the top of the hands covered with a light coating of fur.  What on a human hand would be nails were on his claw sheaths; when Lothar gently pressed the top finger pad of one finger, the claw slid out.  It was slightly curved and very sharp and D'zer flexed the rest of them so he could see their varied lengths.  A swipe at a human throat with such a hand could easily tear said throat open…

The thought of that reminded him of the discussion he'd had with King Terenas the night before.  The King had taken him aside after a council meeting, offered him a tankard of ale and they'd sat together by the fire alone in the King's parlour.

_"Lothar, we need discuss your captive."_

_"Ah, I'd wondered when we'd have this talk."  Lothar sat back, legs crossed and sipped on the strong ale as the King's eyes narrowed.  "I know what people are saying, that D'zer killed people and he needs to die."_

_"Lothar, if he is a man eater, he can't be kept in captivity.  He's much too dangerous."_

_"Sire, I'm not sure he is a man eater.  He just doesn’t have that killer look about him.  He's more curious about us than aggressive.  I'm sure he would fight if attacked – he is certainly built for it – but…"  Lothar suck in a deep breath as irritation bloomed inside.  "I just don’t know for sure.  But killing him because he's different…"_

_"I would not be just killing him for that reason, Lord Commander.  But if he slaughtered three of my people, he deserves punishment."_

_"Yes, I understand.  I'm don’t know how to prove it, one way or the other."_

_The King drank down his own ale, his eyes hooded as he stared into the flames.  "If you cannot, then I may need to make a unilateral decision.  But if I decide he must be put down, it will be done humanely, I give you my word…"_

_Put down…._ The words were hateful.  As he held D'zer's hand and looked across into the eyes of trust, they were like a sour taste in his mouth.  "How can I find out?"  He whispered the words, thumb stroking across the hot palm.  "How can I know if you are a killer or just a lost, lonely creature like me?  I mean, you cannot even answer my questions, and even if you could, how would I judge the truth of the answers?"

His miserable ruminations were interrupted by the sound of young voices behind him.  He looked around and saw his nephew, in company with Prince Arthas and some of the other young nobles, entering the courtyard.  Varian walked ahead and stopped behind Lothar, dipping his head politely.  "Uncle, would you mind if we came to see the creature?  We've heard about it and Arthas was curious."

"Of course not.  Just don’t get too close to the bars.  He isn't all that fond of strangers."

Varian had matured from the sad little boy who'd seen his father killed by orcs and his city destroyed.  Years of determined training had matured him into a strong and confident young man ready to take on the world.  Yet he had his mother's sharp intellect, and he approached the cage with care, intently watching D'zer, who was equally intently watching him.  Lothar stood behind him, ready to do whatever was necessary to protect his nephew and his King but Varian was wise enough to keep a safe distance.  He studied D'zer and Lothar noticed him frown as he ran his eyes over the alien features.

"Uncle…there's something familiar about him.  It's almost like I recognise him."  He moved fractionally closer, eyes locked on D'zer's face.  "It's…oh, you will think I'm insane!"

"What?"  A sense of chill ran up Lothar's spine.  "What do you see?"

"I don't know.  I'm not sure.  But I swear by the Light that I know that face from somewhere.  It's…I can't put my finger on it but I know it.  I know him and," he turned to Lothar, puzzled, "that's not possible, is it?  How can I know him when I've never seen him before?"

He shook his head then turned as he heard a sound.

"V…rian…V…rian…"  

It was D'zer; he was staring up at Varian's face and although he didn’t know how he knew, Lothar was certain that just as his nephew had recognised something in that animalistic face, so too had D'zer.

Which was equally impossible; yet when he thought back on it, he couldn’t recall saying Varian's name. _  
_

 


	5. Wash Time

There was a storm that night and it rained for hours. All D'zer could do was huddle miserably in a corner, tail wrapped around him, his head buried in his arms as the rain fell. By morning he was soaked, chilled and very unhappy.

When the Lothar arrived in the morning with his food and water, rather than the normal cheerful greeting, all D'zer could manage to dig up out of his bad mood was a glare and a snarl. The Lothar stopped suddenly and laughed, which made it worse.

"Oh Lords, I'm sorry, poor D'zer. I forgot about the rain. You look a total mess."

It didn’t sound like he was so sorry and D'zer snarled his temper out in a long, guttural growl. That got a reaction.

"Now you can just stop giving me attitude. Come here!"

He dared to hesitate for a few moments, but finally stood and shuffled through the mess to the bars, glaring across into the blue eyes watching him. He searched through his words and came up with one. "Yuck!"

The man laughed. "Yuck? That's a new one. Very well, yes, you do look yuck and I am sure you feel yuck too. I'm sorry we left you outside but it started raining when we were all asleep." He turned and called to the other man. "Manion, take this back to the kitchen, and tell the barracks workers to put on hot water for the big tub. And tell them to clear the barracks so I can bring him through."

He wasn’t sure what a lot of the words were, his anger was clouding his mind, stirring the Fel to make him stay angry. He grabbed the bars in a fierce grip, shuddering as he forced the Fel back down because he knew, through the green cloud of its power, that the Lothar would open the door in a few seconds and when he did, if the Fel took over, he'd go for his throat and he very, very much didn’t want to do that. So he fought it, holding himself still by an immense act of will, until it finally subsided to something manageable. He felt the hand touch his head, stroking it in that familiar way as the lead was attached to his collar. "You're shivering, come on and we'll get you clean and warm."

 _He thinks I'm shivering because I'm cold, doesn’t know it's not just that._ The realisation numbed him. If that was how it would be always, how could he stay and hope to live? And he didn’t want to hurt the Lothar, not one bit. He was special, this man, and D'zer was nothing but a thing, a fel-infected beast. He'd not tried very hard to escape because of the Lothar but now it seemed maybe he needed to try definitely because of the Lothar. It would need thinking about, even it did give him a headache.

By the time he stopped thinking about that he was inside the human building. It was pleasant, like a cave you could curl up in, warm and dry even with so much human smell everywhere. Not that he minded human smells really but there was so much of it. He'd come to recognise some of them by their smell. Even Manion was becoming familiar, though that might be 'cause of the faint trace of his marking him which even the strong soap didn’t entirely cover. It was only when the Lothar took him through into one room that he baulked. There was a big round wooden thing and it was being filled with steaming water by Manion and another man. He had a pretty good idea what the Lothar had in mind and he whined in distress.

 _He is going to drown me! He will put me in the hot water and cook me! I'm going to be soaked and cooked and probably eaten! Help!_ He whined again, tugging at the collar and lead and the Lothar slapped his hand away.

"Stop that! You aren’t being hurt, it's to wash you, to make you clean!"

He panted, shivering even more and the Lothar moved in front of him and tipped up his chin with a finger. "Look at me, D'zer. Come on, look at me."

He twitched, unwillingly raising his face. He didn’t like holding an eye stare, his old master had sucked out his memories through his eyes, the Fel had flowed into him from those eyes. But the Lothar's eyes were clear and untouched by Fel and he sniffed and tried to be calm. "Trust me. I will never hurt you." He seemed to realise that his words, though kind, hadn't penetrated, so he unclipped the lead from D'zer's collar and dropped it. "Very well, I'll show you." He began pulling at his clothing and in a little while had taken all the pieces off except for a small underthing. He turned and climbed into the tub. "Come along, D'zer. If anything goes wrong, I'll be right in here with you."

Some of the other humans spoke up then in loud, clashing voices but the Lothar just waved a hand and gestured D'zer to him. Unwillingly, he finally climbed over the edge and slid into the water.

It took time for his heart to stop thumping and the panting to fade. The water was hot but not too much and he slid lower, finally stopping when it reached his shoulders. The Lothar was in front of him, smiling and nodding. "Well done. Now turn around." And when he did hands landed on his head and he was shoved under the surface.

It was such a betrayal! He shot upright, howling and spitting and lashing out with both hands but the Lothar had dodged backwards and avoided him. "Stop that! You had to get wet all over! Behave!"

D'zer growled out his anger, eyes narrowed. "Bad!" He remembered that word, his old master had called him that. "Bad Bad!"

"Yes, I know, I'm very bad," he said, smiling. "Stand still and let me wash the dirt off you, you big baby."

Rumbling his annoyance, D'zer let the Lothar wash him. Despite the ickyness of soaked fur, it felt good to be cleaned; the sensation of those strong fingers working the soap through his coat and over his skin was wonderful. There was a lot of dirt and matted sawdust to get out but in the end the water cooled and got dirtier and he got cleaner. He was ordered out of the tub and everyone backed up as he shook himself, sending the water spraying away. The Lothar picked up a cloth and was about to rub him down when another man came in and spoke to him. He nodded and handed the cloth to Manion. "I have to go for a while. Manion will dry and comb you. Now don't you cause him any trouble." A hand grabbed D'zer's chin and lifted it, brushing aside the sopping fringe of mane. "Do you understand?"

He nodded, and sighed.

"Good. I'll return later. And when are drier you can eat."

Then he was gone, and D'zer turned his eyes on Manion, who held the cloth out and scowled. "Don't pee on me again, you great furball!"

It was an idea, definitely an idea, but he restrained himself. The man was working on the coat to rid it of water and that was a good thing so he stood and let him without trouble. Manion whistled as he worked, rubbing and squeezing out the water, and getting another cloth when the first was soaked. He had D'zer sit near a hot thing which was nice; steam rose from the wet fur as Manion brushed and combed out the knots and mats.

He had D'zer lift his arms so he could comb under them, and as he turned over one hand to comb the underarm, he paused, running finger through the fur below the wrist, parting it.

"What's this marking?" He bent to look and so did D'zer. He didn’t know what it was, just something on his skin there for a long time. He shrugged. "Hmm, reminds me of something, it's like a tattoo or a clan sign, but not. Ah well, not a wound, anyhow." He went back to his annoying whistling and D'zer wondered what he would get for breakfast, and if Manion would stop whistling if he asked him to. Probably not. Humans were strange.


	6. Bed, Breakfast and Guarding One's Own

Having sorted out the matter of a fist fight between two city guards (a day in stockade for each of them, loss of a week's pay for the one who started it), Lothar returned to the barracks to find a cleaned and almost dry D'zer anxious for his breakfast.

He walked around D'zer, nodding slowly.  "Well, you look a lot better.  Wasn’t it worth getting wet to look so good?"

That earned him a derisive snort and a curl of the lip.  It seemed nothing was worth getting in a tub for.  "If you don't like it, in future keep yourself clean.  But I get it's hard to do in that cage."

Which raised a point: just where was he going to stay, if not in the cage?  He couldn’t leave him in the barracks, or in a prison cell, or constantly under guard. 

There weren't many options.  He sighed, collected the lead and gave it a flip.  "Fine, follow me, and if you mess THIS place up there will be real yuck-type trouble."

He took D'zer out across the courtyard and into the side door to the Palace.   He mostly used this entry when he didn’t want to venture through the more formal areas of the Palace, and it was a handy back way to his rooms on the far end of the accommodation wing.  He took the stairs with D'zer padding behind him, ears pricked forward as he looked around with obvious curiosity, and then along a mostly deserted corridor to a set of double doors.  He pushed them open and stepped through into his rooms.

His secretary, Martha Devoran, looked up and then froze.  "Lord…Commander?"

"Martha, come here, slowly please.  Don't be afraid."

The young woman put down her quill and stood at his order.  She was a calm, intelligent woman, one reason Lothar employed her, but even so she was very uncertain.  "Is he…dangerous?"

"Yes, but not if you behave correctly.  Come next to me, and let him get your scent."  He turned to D'zer.  "D'zer, this is Martha.  She is my servant.  You will not harm her, you will protect her, do you understand?"

D'zer bent towards the woman slowly, ears forward, nostrils flared.  He studied her, his great eyes unblinking, then looked up to Lothar and nodded.

"Excellent.  Martha, he is quite intelligent, if you treat him so and not as just a beast, you will be fine.  He cannot talk – well, he has a few words but he can't hold a conversation – but you will find he mostly understands if you speak to him of simple things."

"Hungry!"

He snorted a laugh at Martha's alarmed twitch.  "No, that doesn’t mean he wants to eat you – stop scaring Martha, you wretch! - he hasn't had breakfast yet, it's a general complaint.  If you could do me a favour and go to the kitchen, ask for his breakfast and his water bowl, I'll get him set up here."

She nodded and left the room in an almost undignified dash.  D'zer made a chuckling sound as he inspected the room, his lead trailing behind him.  He checked and sniffed everything in sight and peered through an open door, then looked over his shoulder, head to one side in query.

"Yes, you can go in there.  You'll be sleeping in there from now on."  Lothar collected a pile of furs and blankets from the storage cupboard in his office and walked through into the room that D'zer had just entered.  It was his bedroom, a comfortable room with a big four poster bed, storage, a small work desk and large windows looking out across the kitchen gardens at the back.  Lothar dumped the blankets on the floor.

"Make a bed for yourself there.  You'll sleep in here until I can figure out something more permanent."

Lothar sat on the edge of the bed watching D'zer sort through the furs and blankets, putting them into two piles and then stacking them together.  It was a reasoned and organised system; some of the furs went on the floor first to provide a barrier to the cold, with blankets on top for softness, and one of the blankets rolled into something the shape of a pillow.  He would sit back and consider his work now and then, rearrange things to his liking and try it out to see if it was the right size and shape.

 _There is an actual thinking mind there.  He isn’t an animal._   And even so, was this creature, this…non-animal…responsible for the death of three people?  Was he a killer?  Certainly he was built to fight but he'd never shown real aggression to Lothar or anyone else, unless he felt threatened.  And to Lothar he was obedient and responsive.  Despite himself, Lothar realised his liked D'zer.  Whoever or whatever he was, there was a connection there.

Martha arrived back with his breakfast and he sat on his new bed and happily consumed it.  After his wash he looked refreshed and, Lothar realized, rather magnificent.  His strange green coat had a healthy gleam and the ruff of fur on his head and around his neck and shoulders had fluffed out.  Rest and good food had begun to fill him out; his ribs weren’t quite so noticeable and he'd lost some of the gaunt, shadowed look of a hunted creature.  His big cat-green eyes were bright with interest and intelligence. 

He watched as D'zer moved across to sit on the floor beside him, resting his head against Lothar's leg and making that contented rumbling sound that was almost like a purr.  He ran his fingers through the soft, thick mane and sighed.  "I wish you could talk.  If you could speak, you could tell me about yourself, how you came to be here, where you came from…whether or not you were involved in the deaths of those people."  He rubbed around the upswept ears, eyes unfocused.  "Oh Khadgar, I miss you.  I miss our talks, the way you'd look at me when I did something stupid.  I miss waking up with you in the morning, and holding you in the night.  Are you dead, lover?"  He snorted and stood, giving D'zer a last pat.  "I'm being an old idiot, talking to myself, it's the first sign.  Come on, beast, let's go for a walk."

They walked around the city together – Lothar took the opportunity to check out the guards and assess their state of readiness, and it allowed D'zer to become more at ease among people.  The soldiers were fascinated by him and although he wasn’t comfortable when they crowded him, Lothar kept him close with a hand on his arm.  He didn’t become aggressive, though now and then he would shake with tension.  Afterwards he loaded some cold sausages, bread and flask of ale into his backpack and took D'zer for a walk out beyond the wall to the woods. 

D'zer enjoyed that part of things and obviously itched to be off investigating.  After some thought, Lothar released the lead and let him go and he bounded off with a yip, returning ten minutes later with a dead rabbit which he dropped at Lothar's feet.  He pointed at it and grinned his toothy smile. 

"Eat?"

The poor rabbit was a mangled mess and Lothar shuddered.  "No, but thank you.  Your catch, your lunch."

* * *

The days were much better now.  He didn’t sleep in the horrible cage anymore, he slept on a comfortable pad in the Lothar's place.  At night, when he woke from unpleasant dreams, he could hear the Lothar's snores from his sleeping thing not far away.  He snored loud; out in the woods he'd have drawn every beast out hunting from miles away with those snores.  But D'zer was there and he slept lightly and nothing would sneak up on the Lothar while he was with him.

He was getting used to people and finding that although they all looked different to orcs, some of them behaved like orcs.  There were bad ones who laughed at him and said things that sounded cruel when the Lothar wasn’t close by.  There were ones who were afraid of him and he sensed they'd kill him if they had the chance.  Not all humans were nice but he was good at smelling out the bad from the good.  The Martha was good; she'd been afraid of him at first but not the hating kind-of fear, just nervous because he was strange.  After a while she got used to him and would talk to him as if he were another person.  She often sang things while she did her desk work, and he loved the sound of that and would sit listening to her whenever she sang her songs.  She was eating a plate of sweet fruit pies one day and he crouched on his haunches with his chin on the desk and gave her his best starving look and she laughed and fed him one of the pies.  He liked her after that.

One day was a bad day for her.  She was very busy at her paper-scraping work and had forgotten to reattach his lead to the wall but he was happy just to lie on his bed in a patch of sun and doze.  He was woken by a sound of loud voices from her room; a deep man's voice laughed but it wasn’t a happy launch and she cried out and that was definitely a fear sound.  D'zer jumped up and slid across the floor, pushing the door open.

There was a strange man and he had the Martha pushed back against her desk and he was doing things with his hands under her clothing.  She was struggling, trying to shove him away but he was too strong and her words weren't making him stop.  She was shaking with fear and that was enough for D'zer:  protect Martha the Lothar had said, and that was his job to do so he launched himself across the room with a high snarl, kicking the strange man away from her and facing him, teeth bared and claws out.

As the man climbed to his feet with a shout, the Martha grabbed D'zer by the arm.  "No.  Stop D'zer.  Don't kill him, please!"

He was undecided.  The Lothar had told him to protect and he'd do that if the man came closer.  The Martha, though, didn’t want him to, which was strange but she clung to him with her small, soft hands and he couldn’t risk fighting with her that close.  So he held his ground, snarling, ears back, and waited to see what the man would do.

"I'll kill that rotten bastard beast!  How dare it touch me!"

"My Lord, please.  Just go!"

The man spat and backed up, reeking of drink and fear.  "Keep it chained.  If it comes near me again I'll kill it, bitch.  Man can't have a bit of fun without being attacked by some hideous animal.  Keep it controlled…"

He moved to the door, keeping his eyes on D'zer, backing away with a dagger clutched in one shaking fist.  D'zer didn’t move until he sensed the man was gone away, then he turned to inspect the woman.  She seemed well enough, no wounds, still shaking in fear and he stood still as she wrapped her arms around him.  She didn’t speak, just held him for a while and he snuffled into her sweet-smelling hair and gave her his silent comfort.


	7. Going Bad

Two days later, events took a bad turn.  

 

Lothar was called into a meeting with the King, and the older man got straight to the point. 

"More bodies have been found."

The words chilled Lothar, no less than the unbending stance of the King.  He guessed what was coming. "Where?" 

"One of the more remote farms.  The bodies were only found after a family member stopped by to visit."  The King was pacing, not a good sign for a normally staid and restrained man.  "An entire family gone.  A husband, wife and…" He turned to Lothar, disgust twisting his features, "a child.  Just a baby.  All ripped to pieces." 

"But D'zer is here.." 

"My healer tells me the remains are at least a week old, probably more.  Lothar…he has to be put down.  Anything that would slaughter a baby…eat them, its…it’s disgusting."

"It could have been a wild animal attack."  Lothar sat in one of the intricately carved high-backed chairs, despite the break in protocol.  "There is no guarantee it was him!" 

The King turned and held out his hand.  "Except for this."  

On his palm was a patch of fur.   Green fur, stained with old blood.  "How many animals, Lothar, have fur like this?"

He reached out and took the fur, studied it, as unhappiness curled in his middle.  His hand clenched into a fist as he looked up at the King.  "You want me to do it?" 

"I am sorry, Lord Commander, but sometimes unpleasant things have to be done, for the good of others.  If he were a man guilty of multiple murders, you would not doubt the need, would you?" 

Lothar shook his head, suddenly very tired.  "No, I wouldn’t."  He stood, went to turn away, then remembered, and bowed.  "I will take care of it, Majesty." 

He walked slowly back to his rooms, head down, trying to talk himself into the logic of it.  IF D'zer had killed those people, he deserved to die.  The proof was in his hand.  It was his duty to carry out the order just as it was his duty to protect people who trusted him. 

_But I told him to trust me, that I'd never hurt him.  But it’s the right thing to do, isn’t it?  Why does it feel like a betrayal?_  

When he entered his rooms, he stopped suddenly.  D'zer was lying on his bed, sprawled across the furs and blankets, the lead lying loose off the side – he'd got into the habit of not restraining D'zer in his rooms because there seemed no need for it.   Apparently he'd decided that Lothar's bed looked more comfortable than his own pad and had climbed onto it after Lothar had left. 

He stood looking down at the sleeping creature.  He was on his back, tail curled over his belly, one hand resting there, the other thrown out across the bed.  An odd memory floated to the surface – _Khadgar had liked to sleep like that, sprawled out, taking up far more of the bed than his size suggested…_   And D'zer looked so peaceful, a great, slumbering catlike creature with so little of the killer about him, making small waffling snore sounds and little mutters in his sleep. 

He looked down at the small patch of stained fur, and shoved it into his vest pocket.  It did no good to dwell on it; he had his orders and that was that.

 

* * *

 

The woods were fine that day, full of sunlight and moving wind that filled his nostrils with the scent of things.  Animals, flowers, birds, the smell of crushed grass under his feet, the feel of the sun on his face.  It was good to be out, walking briskly alongside the Lothar, sensed ranging wide to check for threat. 

They walked further that day than they had before; the city walls were lost to view in the forest and they left the path and went into the deeper woods far from the scent or sight of humans.  Perhaps they would be hunting, D'zer thought, there would be plenty of game to track and kill in those thick forests.  He was thinking of deer, and how could it would be to taste some venison, when Lothar stopped. 

"D'zer." 

His voice was odd and D'zer turned, to find the Lothar standing still with his sword out.  It was puzzling – there was no threat, not an animal bigger than a squirrel anywhere in range.  He looked at the sword, then up into the blue eyes and they weren't looking out at the forest, they were fixed on him.

"I am sorry, D'zer.  I must break a promise to you.  I said I would never hurt you.  But you killed people, my friend, you are a danger, and you must…" He swallowed and blinked and D'zer thought, he looked sad.  He must be sad because he thinks I'm bad and I must die.  But I'm not bad!

He put his hand to his chest and shook his head.  "Good.  D'zer good.  Behaves good."  It was hard to think, to try and take the words that he had and make them work together.  It was harder still because the Lothar was going to kill him and that was wrong, so wrong.  To kill for a reason yes, but there was no reason.  He hadn't killed people.  _How to tell him!  Where are the words!_

The Fel swirled inside him, trying to take over, to make him go wild with it, lash out, attack, escape.  He shook with the force of it and finally overcame it.  _If I must die now I die as me, not as fel monster_.  He stepped carefully closer and sank to his haunches, took the Lothar's other hand and pressed it to his face.  Closing his eyes, he waited.  Best, he thought sadly, to die from the Lothar's hand than a stranger who hated him.

The hand shook, then slid under his chin and lifted his face and he knew Death was very close, just a breath away.  And then something changed.  He heard the scrape of metal, opened his eyes and saw it was back in its holder and the Lothar pulled him to his feet – then pushed him away.

"Go.  Run.  Get away, far away.  Don't stay here, leave."

He twitched, ears flattening on his head.  "Noooo.  Stay."

"I said leave.  I don't want you here anymore.  Now run before I change my mind.  Run, and keep running."

He didn’t understand what had changed, what had made the Lothar not want him anymore, made him think D'zer was a beast, a man killer.  Things had been so good and now they were bad again.  He whined and the Lothar held up his fist, his blue eyes hard.

"I said go or I'll hurt you.  Do you understand?"

Yes, he understood hurt.  The orcs had hurt him.  He understood that all too well.  There was no way to ask anymore, no way to understand what couldn’t be understood.  All he could do was leave as he'd been told, to obey that last order from the human who would always be special to him, no matter how things had gone so bad.  
  
He walked, then jogged into the deeper woods.  After a little while he looked back and saw the Lothar standing watching him before turning to walk back towards the walls.  So, he turned away too and loped forward until there was nothing in view but the trees.  And the water that run from his eyes came from some strange place in his chest that was tight and painful and wasn’t like any pain he'd known before.  It seemed some humans knew how to hurt in ways that even the orcs didn’t know.

 


	8. Green Eyes - artwork

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Something of how I see D'zer....

[](http://imgur.com/Yl6y6NO)


	9. Regrets and Revelations

He'd read the report twice without comprehending a word.  It appeared his ability to concentrate had vanished with D'zer, not to mention his sanity.

King Terenas had given him what amounted to an order.  In fact, Terenas wasn’t his superior, he couldn’t order Anduin to do anything.  Anduin wasn’t just a warrior, he was Guardian to the King of Stormwind, and it was to Varian he owed his allegiance.  Yet he was Lord Commander of the Alliance forces and a guest of Terenas in Lordaeron.  As a guest, as well as commander of the armed forces, his responsibilities encompassed all Alliance citizens.  He'd put the welfare of those he was meant to protect below one strange, potentially dangerous creature.

And then he had, in effect, lied about it.

Well, not lied exactly, just not told Terenas that he hadn't done what he'd set out to do.  That he'd released a creature that might well end up killing the King's people.  He'd been avoiding the King ever since, like a child who, guilty of some misdemeanour, tried to avoid the matter by ignoring it.  If the King came out and asked him, he'd have to admit to it.  Evasion was one thing, straight-up lying was something else altogether.  And then the act would come back to bite him in the butt big time.

He'd reasoned the action by trying to use the time to investigate the issue.  The first person who'd spoken to him about D'zer on his return had been Martha, and she'd been immensely relieved when he told her the facts.  _Lying to King would be dishonourable, and lying to Martha pointless._ He knew she supported him, worked for his welfare and wouldn’t gossip.  But the reason for her satisfaction had been infuriating, when she'd told him of how D'zer had saved her.

He'd stood there, enraged.  "I'll kill the bastard!"

She'd become agitated when he'd turned to go.  "No sir, please don't.  Rufus is the son of Lord Townley.  My family is common stock, his Lordship could make things very difficult for my mother and father, and my brother Peter.  Believe me, D'zer scared the…crap…out of him and I wasn’t hurt.  D'zer could have attacked him since you told him to defend me but he didn’t, he stopped being aggressive when I asked him to."  She'd touched his arm.  "Sir, would someone like that kill a little child, kill unarmed farmers?  It makes no sense to me to think so."

 _Me either._   _But I'll still be having some words with that young piece of shit Rufus at an appropriate time._   Yet she was also right about D'zer, he thought as folded the report away.  It wasn’t the act of a mindless beast, he'd reasoned out the situation and done the right thing for her, and for himself _.  I just wish I knew what it all meant.  If not D'zer, then who or what did it?  The evidence points to him, it appears to be undeniable._

He'd said much the same thing to her, and Martha's response had stuck with him.  "I don't know, my Lord.  Except that I've found that sometimes the obvious isn’t the right answer."

 

* * *

 

With D'zer no longer around, Manion had been returned to normal duties which were both safer and somewhat boring.  Manion had started to like the big furball – despite his tacky way of expressing his early annoyance at Manion – and since rumour had it that the Lord Commander had taken him out to put him down, he found it sort of sad.  A poor end for a fascinating creature, he thought, as he made his way to the local grocers to pick up a sack of potatoes for the barracks cook.

As he waited at the door for the sacks to be brought out, he noticed an old poster stuck up on the wall.  It had seen better days, the weather had begun to rot it away and he recognised it as one of the posters Lothar had put up around the town regarding the lost mage, Khadgar.  As he turned towards the grocer he suddenly paused and looked back, puzzled.  There was a symbol on the poster and he moved closer to get a better look.  "Mark of the Kirin Tor" it said, found on Khadgar's left arm below the wrist….way of identifying him…  _Why is it familiar…where have I seen…_

And then he remembered.  Remembered drying D'zer, parting the hair on his arm and finding a mark there he'd thought was a clan totem or something.  _And it had looked exactly like that!_

Manion tossed the sack of potatoes back to the startled grocer and headed at a run for the Lord Commander's office.  He just hoped he wasn't the bearer of really disastrous news…..

 

* * *

 

D'zer had found a hollow almost-dead tree with no fresh scat inside it or any odour to suggest anything had rested there recently.  There was the sense of rain on the wind and he collected dried grass and leaves and turned the old tree into a comfortable sleeping space, as good a place as any to stay out of the weather for the night.  He was glad of it as night fell and the rain began because he could curl up with his back to the inside trunk where he was protected from the wind and wet.

He lay there for a long time watching the rain fall outside and thinking.  Sometimes thinking hurt if he tried too hard, especially if he tried to remember things about himself.  His first master had punished him when he'd done that, used magical things on him to make finding the memories harder and it was best afterwards just to not think too much so it didn’t hurt.  There were plenty of other pains to worry about back then.  But one thing he knew for certain was that he didn’t want that master to find him and take him back.

_Rather die for sure than that.  Orcs are hateful.  They got fun hurting me.  Not going anywhere near them orcs._

And it hurt in other ways to think of the Lothar.  It had been so good being with him, so comfortable, he'd felt part of something, like a pack made up of him and the Lothar and Martha and even silly Manion.  He'd had a place there and now he had no place.  When that strange tightness inside started again and his eyes got wet he wiped them and tried not to think about the Lothar so it didn’t hurt.

The rain stopped by morning and he emerged to relieve himself, get a drink from a nearby stream, and find something to eat.  There was plenty of game around and he brought down a small deer and wished he had someone to share it with.  Seemed a pity to waste all that good food but he ate what he could until he was full and buried the rest to stop it smelling.  Once he was clean from that he investigated the area around the tree, sniffing for any markers from dangerous animals.  He picked up a faint bear smell but nothing beyond that.  Except for small things and birds, he was alone.

With no particular idea what to do, D'zer just walked.  He had no sense of direction, so any way was as good as another.  Yet something drew him one way, he wasn’t sure why.  A sense of something, a hint of threat, like a _zing_ on his nerves, like a toothache about to blossom.  Curious, cautious, D'zer tracked the intriguing sensation…

* * *

Within five minutes of Manion revealing his astonishing information, Anduin was on horseback and riding as fast as the terrain allowed into the forest.

His sense of anguish made it difficult to concentrate on what he was doing.  Frustration, alarm, shock, disbelief, all that and more had him shaking in the saddle.  How had he not seen it?  How had he not known?  _How could I be so totally blind!!!_

For days he'd had Khadgar near him, touched him, looked into his eyes – and he hadn't recognised him.  Yes, something terrible had been done to him to change him into a creature who called himself D'zer, but how had that appearance misled him so?  When he thought back on it, there were hints and traces of Khadgar's original features but they'd been lost in the overall abnormality of his altered body.  Even as logic told him that not seeing a young man in that green-furred, green eyed creature was understandable, he still felt shamed. 

He had no real idea where to find Khadgar so he went in the direction of where he'd last seen him and dismounted, trying to find traces of his movements.  Anduin wasn’t an experienced tracker, it wasn’t a skill he generally needed and he had plenty of good trackers he could call on.  He hissed at his lack of foresight at not bringing one but it was too late to go back; it was mid-afternoon and by the time he returned, organised a tracker and set off again it would be too late to do more that day.  Impatient and incensed at his stupidity, he continued on.

His horse sensed the danger before he did.  It stopped suddenly, tossing its head and snorting, ears back in alarm.  It was a trained warhorse and it didn’t baulk but it stepped backwards slowly, fighting the bit.  Anduin pulled out his sword and searched for the cause; even as he did something large erupted from the trees, shrieking.  His horse reared and he clamped on with his knees, dropped the reins and swung his sword back as the horse swivelled and kicked out with his hind legs.

It was only then that it saw it stood on two legs, and its fur was green….

 


	10. Rescues and Recovering

D'zer heard the scream and leapt into a charge, moving as fast as he could, because he heard a shout moments later and recognised it.

 _The Lothar_.  And something was after him.

As he broke through the trees into a small clearing he saw what it was. 

Lothar was on the ground, rolling and twisting to try and avoid the beast attacking him.  It was big, its fur green like D'zer but its unkept pelt was torn and matted and it reeked of blood and fury.  D'zer screamed a challenge and it turned towards him, ears back, tail lashing around its thighs, lips drawn back over stained teeth.  Without a thought, he launched himself forward and slammed into the thing, driving it backwards.

Then it was just fighting.  Teeth and claws, kicking and gouging, voices raised in warbling screams.  It was strong but clumsy, not as fast as D'zer and he used that extra speed to leap onto its back and savage it neck and shoulders.  It screamed and threw itself down and D'zer rolled aside and up to his feet, barely aware of his own wounds, all his senses centred on the other.  A little more wary, it circled him, bending forward with its arms out and clawed hands wide and wet with his blood.  At the same moment they both screamed a challenge and leapt forward.  D'zer sprinted and jumped over its head, avoiding the thrashing claws, twisting in mid air to land on its back again.

D'zer clawed and bit at the creature's throat but before he could deliver a fatal slice it grabbed him and hurled him up and over its head.  D'zer instinctively curled into a ball as he flew but was unable to avoid slamming into a tree.  The world faded in and out in a wash of pain and he struggled to concentrate, to stand…  He thought, I'll die now, but even as his focus returned and he saw the creature steps away from him, approaching for the death blow, it stopped and shrieked, clawing at the pointed metal that had suddenly appeared through its stomach.  Blood gushed from its open mouth, it staggered forward a step or two as if trying to move away from the thing, and then fell down in a heap.  The only movement it made then was a heave as the Lothar pulled the big metal weapon from its body.

It was over so fast that D'zer hardly had time to think about how it was over.  He looked up, whimpering at the many pains in his body as Lothar dropped to one knee beside him.  The Lothar spoke words but none of them made sense and he blinked and moaned and licked the hand that stroked his face before the light all went away and took the Lothar with it…

 

* * *

 

"If it was not quite so shocking, it would be amazing.  Such a complex transformation."

Antonidas, Anduin realised, was a bit of a bastard.  Khadgar had never held the man in very high regard, despite his lofty position within the Kirin Tor, and Anduin was beginning to understand his attitude.

They were seated in the Archmage's quarters atop the Kirin Tor towers in Dalaran, two days after Anduin had staggered through a portal carrying an unconscious, damaged creature, a creature they could hardly accept as their lost mage, Khadgar.  Anduin had barely slept in that time, kept going by tea and whisky, usually mixed together.  The stress and lack of sleep stretched his controls even further; he was finding it difficult to remain civil and his patience was fast running out.

"Yes," he said, struggling to keep the bitterness from his voice, "I'm sure you see him that way, but I see him as someone in need of the Kirin Tor's help.  So do you plan to help him or just study him?"   

The old mage frowned, one eyebrow raised.  "There is no need for that attitude, Lord Commander.  I was merely making an observation.  It has no bearing on the level of care Khadgar is receiving – and will continue to receive."

It was true enough that as soon as Antonidas and the other senior members of the order had realised what it was that Anduin had brought up to Dalaran, they'd set straight to work on Khadgar's altered body.  Healing had been a priority – he'd taken many wounds defending Anduin.  The healers had put him into a deep sleep to help him recover since he'd become increasingly distressed at his surroundings and being handled by strangers.

The wounds were nasty but none of them had been near to fatal, thankfully.  Even so, it had been dreadful to see that slender, brave person torn and bloodied, lying barely conscious and whining from the pain.

"The problem is twofold, Lord Commander.  The first issue is his physical aspect.  Whatever Gul'dan did to him, it has radically altered his physical form.  And I don't simply mean his outward appearance – almost all of him has been adapted in one way or another.  The healers believe that Gul'dan did this over a period of time, working on him to turn him closer to the beast than the human, to make him stronger and perhaps more dangerous."  Antonidas looked past Anduin with the expression he'd become familiar with, the unfocused stare of a powerful intellect.  "It is something of a testament to Khadgar's innate strength of will that he has maintained any part of his true self.  The creature you say attacked you is probably what he should have become, but managed not to."

"But you can fix him, yes?"  Anduin poured himself a glass of whisky and tried not to let the glass shake.  "You are all mages, surely you can change him back?"

"I doubt very much whether anyone can reverse the physical changes.  Gul'dan perhaps, but no one else and I'm not even sure he could.  However, it may be possible to bring back his memories, to allow Khadgar's sense of self, for want of a better description, to resurface.  There is some sign of magic interference centred on his brain and I have mages working on that aspect.  If we can remove whatever magical restraint Gul'dan placed upon him, it's quite possible he will, in time, return to us.  But again – I cannot guarantee it."  His expression softened.  "I am sorry, I know how important he is to you.  The fact is, he may never come back, he may always be this D'zer you speak of."

"You're a pessimist, Archmage.  I prefer to look for the positives."  Anduin tossed back the remainder of the whisky and stood, pushing himself away.  "I'm going to sit with him for a while.  Whatever happens to him," he said, eyes locked on the old man's face, "he will be cared for and protected."

 

The healers' rooms were next to one of Dalaran's small parks, with windows that let in the sun.  Braziers burned herbs and aromatic oils sweetened the air.  It was a quiet place and even the sounds of suffering were muted.  Healers regularly checked those under their care and one was applying a bandage to Khadgar's arm when Anduin arrived.

Khadgar was lying on a raised bed in one of the outer rooms, so that sunlight spilled across where he lay.  A light blanket covered his body and his head, turned to one side, rested on a pillow.  He could almost have just been asleep, if it wasn’t for the very slow, slight rise and fall of chest. 

Even with most of the wounds repaired and his body cleaned, he was still a mess.  Patches of fur had been gouged away from his chest, back and legs and he had a chunk gone from the ear that had previously been mangled. 

"My poor D'zer," Anduin said, as he pulled a chair closer to the bed.  "You are a mess.

The healer, a young woman hardly older than Khadgar, moved to adjust the blanket.  "He is doing quite well, sir.  I know the scars look ugly but the fur will grow back and he has a very strong constitution.  He will recover well."

"Can you wake him up?"

She considered it, and nodded.  "Yes.  If you can control him safely."

Anduin smiled.  "Of course I can."

 

* * *

 

D'zer opened his eyes.  He was in the strange place with its smells and wrongness and he tried to move, to sit upright but a hand held him down, pressing lightly on his chest.  His lips curled back in a snarl until a familiar voice stilled him.

"Hey, don't you growl at me!"

The Lothar!  He huffed out an embarrassed breath and focused on the face looking down at him, and whined.  A hand stroked his head and he turned his face into it, whimpering.  It was all just so horrible and strange and he hurt, in lots of places!

"Yes, I know.  Just be brave, it will all be better soon."  The Lothar's hand continued to stroke him, curling around his ears in the way he liked and it made the pains a little better, but not much.  He moaned as he tried to move towards the Lothar, opening his mouth to pant.

"Right, let's see what we can do.  Can you show me where it hurts?  Show me the pain."

He lifted a shaking hand and put it on his side above a nasty pain spot.  "Hurt here.  Bad."

The woman he didn’t know moved towards him but slowly, smiling and holding out an empty hand.  He let her touch him because the Lothar was there and didn’t seem concerned about her.  She put her small white hand over his hurt spot, there was a humming sound and warmth crept into him, like sunlight inside only nicer.  She spoke words he didn’t understand, about "a torn… _something…_ " but not understanding didn’t matter while she stroked the pain away.  The Lothar told him to show more pain spots and he did and she gave him her warmth that took it away or made it less of a bad hurt.  He smiled at her when she finished, not showing his teeth, ears forward in pleased relief.

When she was gone the Lothar sat next to him, offering him water in a small plate which he lapped up gratefully.  He was very thirsty and got some more after licking it dry.

"Thank you for saving me back in the forest.  That was very brave."

He looked up into the Lothar's blue eyes and snuffled and smiled.  "Good D'zer?"

"Very good D'zer."  The warmth of the voice soothed him in ways that even the strange woman hadn't managed to do.

He indicated a need to relieve himself and was helped outside into a little garden, then back onto a lower, more comfortable bed.  The Lothar sat with him, feeding him little bits of meat and some sliced apple, a new favourite taste.  It was actually the Lothar's apple but he begged for bits of it and ended up eating most of it.  He made a thought to try and remember _apple_ …


	11. Forest of the Night

Days passed of doing nothing much but sleeping and resting and eating, a lazy time for D'zer, but he didn’t mind it too much.  The Lothar was there a lot of the time, sitting with him, talking to him, taking him for short walks about the strange place.  That part made him a bit nervous and he hissed at people he didn’t know who came too close, tail lashing with nervousness.  The wounds made him a bit bad tempered at first but the pains faded in time and with the Lothar there, he managed not to bite anyone.

After his first meal one day the Lothar attached the lead to his collar and took him into one of the tall buildings that he hadn’t been to before.  He didn’t much like the smell of it and it felt cold and uncomfortable, with weird feelings in the air about him that made his fur stand up, as if he'd been brushed in a high wind.  There were three people there and they looked at him and got a bit close so that he twitched and muttered deep in his throat but he behaved with the Lothar so close.  The Lothar had him stand near a wall and the three strangers stood and faced him and then they started gesturing and talking in a weird, uncomfortable way.  The air filled with more of that uncomfortable thing.  It got closer to him.  He began to shudder, straining against the lead, so terrified that even the Lothar's voice didn’t clam him.  And when it touched him, touched his head…

_It was like a knife thrusting through into his brain, slicing through fur and flesh and bone.  Slicing and cutting its way in and he screamed and screamed….and…_

"Stop it, you're killing him!"

_…and…he remembered….he remembered it all….even as he heard THAT voice…._

"Khadgar!  Gods, please….!"

He saw something from the corner of his eye, a shape, a dark shape of a figure but when he turned it vanished…

**You want to kill him.**

He swung his head around, saw it emerge again from the other side of his vision, big spikes, green shining eyes.

**You want to kill him, Khadgar.**

_He remembered it all.  Remembered Anduin sending him out to the portal.  Remembered him abandoning him there, leaving him in the orcs' hands, to be tortured and turned into this creature, left him alone and helpless…betrayed him…deserted him…_

**You NEED to kill Anduin Lothar.  He deserves to die, Khadgar.**

"Yes."  His voice was a croak, a dry rustle of pain.  "He needs to die."

He drew on his power, or on some strange twisted mutation of his power, as twisted and horrid as his body, a blending of fel and arcane.  He gestured, mouthed words that made sense, finally, as nothing else did – and launched it at the tall figure standing across the room.

 

It happened so fast there was no time to dodge, and the missile of green and white fire struck him in the chest, hurling him backwards into the wall.  Anduin felt and heard things break, and screamed as the stuff seared him through his chestplate.  Only having that armour on had saved him, and only the quick response of the mages had stopped a follow up blast from finishing the job.

A sphere of power sprang up around Khadgar, who was crouched, eyes glaringly bright and mindlessly feral, trying to fling more attacks at him.  Even stunned and pained as he was, Anduin could see that this wasn’t the D'zer he was used to – this was a killer, mad and enraged.

One of the mages not busy maintaining the shield, slid next to him.  The young man was shocked and white.  "Lord Commander!  Are you badly injured?"  He turned to one of the guards at the room's entry.  "Send for a healer at once!"

Anduin sat up carefully, back propped against the wall.  "I think…a couple of my ribs are broken.  And I probably have burns under the armour."  He carefully undid the breastplate and underlying gambeon and pulled them off, wincing at the pieces of flesh that came with it.  The mage hissed at the sight of the seared flesh.

"That doesn’t look good."

It looked even worse than it felt.  The edges of the seared skin were blackened and faint green lines like blood poisoning ran out from where the magic had struck.  Even as the healers arrived and set to work, Anduin could only watch as Khadgar raged inside the field of energy, stalking back and forth and howling a mixture of D'zer-like screams and human words.  "What…happened?  What did you do to him?"

The senior mage crouched down next to him, sending the other mage back to manage the shield as the healers worked on Anduin's chest.  "As Antonidas told you, Lord Commander, we had discovered that a magical effect was at work in Khadgar's brain, subduing his arcane abilities and submerging his personality.  When we deactivated that, it apparently triggered a subliminal instruction of some sort, one that was hidden deeply beneath the other magical influence.  It appears to have returned Khadgar's mind to him, but not without consequences."

"Was this his plan all along?  Aaargh…"  He sucked in a shocked breath as the pain in his chest intensified.  "To…plant him on me…like he was..."

"It's quite possible.  He created in D'zer something you would be unable to resist keeping by you, using the best of Khadgar's nature, infusing it in the changed form in a way that you would wish to succour and protect.  It's particularly twisted and cunning, if it's true."

As he watched his lover raging inside the magic cage, as the pain and the misery dug at him, he thought that Gul'dan knew him better than he knew the orc in return.  He had, perhaps, destroyed both of his enemies, and done it in a way to cause the ultimate pain to each of them.

 

Khadgar studied his hands.  The skin of the palm was green, slightly rough with a pattern of tiny scars and calluses.  He couldn’t remember where he'd got the scars on his hands from.  He couldn’t remember where he'd got any of the scars from.  The last thing he could clearly remember was being in Gul'dan's camp, being punished for some minor disobedience, beaten and lashed like a dog, chained up to be struck or spat on or worse by any passing orc who felt like it.  They'd laughed at him, called him a dog, an unwanted aberration, not even human, not even deserving of the respect an honourable enemy might earn.  He was a thing, unwanted by anyone.

**Except me.  I always wanted you, Khadgar.  You were my creation, so of course I wanted you.**

Gul'dan couldn’t really be there, in that small, magical confinement, but he seemed to be there, drifting in and out of shadows like smoke on the wind.  "I failed," he whispered, running the hand down his leg, smoothing the ruffled fur.  "I didn’t manage to kill him."

**But you did, my young friend.  It will just take a little longer.  It will be slow, and painful.  You may not see him die, but he will.  You did well.  You should be proud.**

But he wasn’t proud, he wasn’t even that pleased.  He knew that Lothar had betrayed him, abandoned him to the orcs. 

He knew that.  _Didn’t he know that??_

When he tried to question his understanding of things, his head hurt. 

**Make them pay.**

"Make them pay…make them…pay…"  He rocked back and forth, staring into the shadows, and his head stopped hurting as he moved back and forth and just didn’t think at all.


	12. Dare Seize the Fire

The healers had done their best.  They had no idea what they were dealing with, and whatever it was resisted all their attempts to mend him.  Anduin could feel it seeping through his body, a deep spreading ache, a heat that flared higher with each passing hour.  The green tendrils in his flesh covered his chest and the wound was beginning fester and it smelled terrible. 

They were, at least, honest with him.  If whatever the green stuff was didn’t kill him first, blood poisoning probably would.  At least it wasn’t as agonising as it looked like it should be.  They gave him potions that deadened the pain.  Those, and generous mugs of Dalaran's best whisky helped to dull the growing anguish.

Finally he went back to where they were keeping Khadgar, arranged a couple of cushions on the floor outside the magical barrier, and lay down to rest.  The healers and mages couldn’t give him precise timing – too many variables, it seemed – but his faltering heart said hours, perhaps.  A day at most.  His body resisted the approach of death as it always had but this was a battle it couldn’t win.  He would use what time it gave him to be with Khadgar.  He was surprised to find he was disturbed by his nearing death, but then he'd rarely had time to know fear of death before, in the heat of battle.  This was a slow, inevitable thing that no sword or shield could forestall.

His arrival had stirred the green figure whose image was slightly distorted by the shimmering wall.  For an hour Khadgar raged at him, stalking back and forth, tail lashing, ears back – but finally, as Anduin said and did nothing but watch, he seemed to calm down.  He hunched down just inches away from Anduin and stared at him, eyes brightly intent in a way that was almost like D'zer.  Almost.

"You will die soon.  I can feel it.  Does it hurt?" 

There was no warmth in the voice, no sympathy.  That was its own special pain, but he pushed it aside.  "Yes, I'll die soon.  It does hurt.  The healers helped a bit but they can only do so much.  Whatever you did, it worked."

Khadgar nodded, ears forward.  "Yes, he said it would.  He said you would die.  You need to die."

"Why do I need to die?"

The ears flicked back and Khadgar snarled.  "You know why."

"No, I don't.  What did I do to you to make you hate me?"

Khadgar flung his arms wide.  "Are you blind!  Look at me!  Look what he did to me after you deserted me and left me in his hands.  He turned me into this..thing...had me beaten and punished and tortured.  They hurt me so much.  And you-just-left me there."

Obviously it hadn’t happened that way, so Gul'dan had somehow twisted Khadgar's memories to his own purposes.  That, along with the changes made to him and the fel's influence, overwhelmed his true memories and kept him confused. 

_How do I combat that?  I'm not a mage, and even if I were, they don’t seem to have that much success with fel-related magic._

There was no obvious or logical thing he could do, so he did the only thing he could think of: he let himself love Khadgar, no matter that he'd brought about his death.  Whatever had been done to and by him, Anduin knew Khadgar would never have done it if he'd been in control of his mind.  So he sat and talked, reminisced about the past, about special moments, little things and big things that they'd shared.  Most of the time Khadgar ignored him, or covered his ears, or ranted.  But he kept on going, taking a drink now and then, resting when he got tired.  At one point he found he was a little hungry and he pulled an apple from his pouch and started slicing it with his belt knife.

"This is a nice apple.  Pity I can't give you a bit."

Khadgar stopped stalking back and forth as he had been and turned towards Anduin.  His ears twitched forward.  "Apple?  Apple."

Anduin paused in mid-slice, hope stirring.  "Yes, apple.  Remember I gave you some the other day.  You liked it, as I recall.  It was my apple but you begged it off me and you know I can never resist you when you beg for things."

Khadgar crouched down right near the screen, eyes focused on the apple.  "Apple…I can say…apple."

"Yes, you can.  Would you like some of my apple?"  He found himself automatically dropping into the tone of voice he'd used with D'zer, and it seemed to trigger a response.  The anger faded from Khadgar's eyes as his head dipped to one side.

"Yes.  Want apple."  He licked his lips, looked up from the apple to Anduin and there was D'zer, the friendly, affectionate creature he'd come to love.  For a moment they sat staring at each other; Anduin with the pieces of apple in one hand, Khadgar/D'zer crouched down wanting some of the apple.   Khadgar bent forward to reach for it and his outstretched hand hit the shield.  It sizzled and spat and he arched backwards, hissing.  "Bad thing!"

Despite everything, Anduin couldn’t help laughing.  It was such a typical expression on that strange/familiar face, that look of aggrieved frustration, and his laughter was natural and oddly cheerful.   So much so that Khadgar automatically smiled and their eyes met.  And there was that instinctive, natural connection, friend to friend.

And in that moment of connection Khadgar staggered and collapsed with a moan, and clutched his head in both hands.  "Bad…bad…the Lothar bad…no, not bad for….D'zer…no…Khadgar…STOP IT!  **GET OUT OF MY HEAD**!"

Khadgar rolled onto his stomach and shuddered.  "No, no, no."  His voice was a strained whisper, filled with horror.  "Why didn’t I see?  Why didn’t I know?  What kind of…idiot…am I?"

"Lots of kind of idiot, spellchucker.  But don't punish yourself, that's my job."

He saw the green eyes focus on him, saw the horror growing there.  "Anduin…what did I…sorry, I am so sorry…"

"It's alright, I know it wasn’t you.  It was that damned…Gul'dan."  It was hard getting a breath and his heart pulsed irregularly, struggling.  He sagged backwards.  "It is…not so bad.  I am just very…tired.."

Khadgar leapt to his feet, shouting.  "Let me out of here!  Let me out, I can help him.  Do you hear me, let me out!"

Anduin saw two of the Kirin Tor guards approach, standing on either side of where he lay.  "You will not be released, by order of…"

"I don't give a fuck whose orders you have!  Let me out, before he dies!  I can help!"

"You have helped enough, this is your doing."

Anduin raised one hand and waved it feebly.  "Please, no shouting.  Let him out, for Light's sake before he hurts himself."

"But Lord Commander, the risk…!"

"What, he might kill me?  Too late.  Let him out, and stand back."

They didn’t like it but they had no orders to ignore him, so the mages dropped the screen and stepped away, ready for an assault.  But all Khadgar did was stagger forward and drop next to Anduin, and take his hand and kiss it.  "I don't…have the words…"

"Yes…you do.  You just needed…to find them.  Love, need, friend.  Just the right words."  He shuddered, fighting for breath.  "I'm…not making…much sense…"

"Yes you are, finally.  Well, here's a word to make you laugh.  Trust."  He opened his eyes at the touch of a hand on his hot face.  "Can you do that one more time, can you trust me?"

He smiled and lifted his hand to rest across Khadgar's.  "Till the day I die."

"Which won't be today…I hope…"  He snarled, expression twisting.  "Get away…I won't listen…."  He huffed out a breath and bent towards Lothar.  "Sorry, he keeps trying to…just stop…no…wrong.."  And when Lothar looked again there was his belt knife in Khadgar's hand.  He thought, _perhaps trust has a new meaning I hadn't picked up on…_ but he watched numbly as Khadgar sliced the blade across his own wrist.  A hand slid behind his head and the bleeding wrist was pressed to his lips.

Khadgar spoke above the shouts of the mages.  "Drink it.  Drink as much as you can.  My blood has his blood in it – his fel blood.  I think…I hope…it will …do…something.."

Trust, he had said, and there was something pure and real about that, to trust someone so much that nothing else mattered.  He swallowed the pungent blood, felt it flush over his tongue and down his throat.  It hit his stomach.  His heart leapt, stuttered and began to pound.

Pain flushed through him but it wasn’t the same as the other pain in his chest.  He held onto Khadgar's arms with bruising strength, staring up at him, gasping and shuddering.  He wanted to throw up.  He tried to scream but his breath was snatched away by a sudden heave inside that felt as if everything was _moving…_

His vision shifted and he made a sound that came from deep inside, that shifted from a groan into a growl.  And the world turned green…


	13. The Sinews of Thy Heart

He was on his back, on some sort of bed, staring at the ceiling and trying make sense of the world.  The one thing he knew for certain was that his chest pain had eased.  The feeling of impending death had faded.  His heart beat strongly but with little of the earlier pain.  He felt surprisingly well.

When he tried to sit up, Anduin found he couldn’t.  Not for lack of power but because of the bindings that held him down.  That was strange.  Why would someone tie him to a bed?  As he pulled at the bindings on his wrist, a voice spoke sharply.

"Stop that, you will hurt yourself."

Anduin paused, looking towards the man standing just inside the door.  _Antonidas. That’s his name.  Kirin Tor. Archmage._   He sniffed, eyes narrowed.  "Why am I tied?  This is intolerable!"

"You are tied," the mage said as he slowly approached, "because we had no way of knowing how you would behave when you woke.  Going by past experience, you could well have been dangerously violent."

He remembered then.  Khadgar feeding him his own blood, the pain, the sense of strangeness, the green.  Anduin blinked, focused on the older man's face and realised it was still there, though not as intense.  "Well, I don't feel dangerously violent, but I do feel uncomfortable.  Undo me.  Now.  Before I do hurt myself."

The old man considered Anduin for a few moments, then nodded, and signalled to young woman across the room.  "Undo him, Louisa, then step back please."

She was young, and very nervous and Anduin smiled at her.  It didn’t seem to make her any less nervous and he realised that might be due to the surprising size and sharpness of his teeth.  He backed it up with words that he hoped sounded harmless.  "It's fine, I won't hurt you.  Being tied up just isn’t one of my favourite things."

She worked on the knots, not quite looking into his eyes.  "I understand, I feel the same way.  Besides, I'm sure I wouldn’t taste very good."

As a joke it was weak, but he smiled again, this time with his lips firmly pressed together.  When the last knot was undone she stepped back and he slowly sat up, flexing his arms and shoulders.

"I feel much better, your healers have done a good job."

"The healers did nothing.  At least nothing that produced any effect."  Antonidas stepped closer, and stood look down at Anduin, his bright eyes fixed on Anduin's chest.  "Whatever Khadgar did to you, it appears have healed you, as well as the more obvious physical results."

Anduin swivelled around and put his legs to the floor, then carefully stood.  His balance was a little off and he held onto the bed with one hand until the world stopped spinning.  He put a hand to his chest, feeling the scars of the burns and marks remaining from Khadgar's strike.  It still ached but it was a feeble pain compared to that which he remembered.  As he looked down he froze, his fingers stilled, then looked up towards the watching Archmage.

"Yes, you are not quite what you were, though not as altered as young Khadgar.  How do you feel?"

Anduin knew the old man was asking for more than a health check.  "Strange.  How do I look?"

Antonidas waved one hand and spoke a brief spell; an oval shimmering vertical shape appeared in the room, its surface smoothing to mirror-like stillness.  Anduin stepped forward and faced it, and saw himself. 

_Yes, it’s a different look._

He wore no clothing of any sort so he could see all the outward changes.  His face was largely unaltered, his hair and beard still dark brown, though his ears had a slight peak to them.  When he drew back his lips he noted the sharp teeth he'd earlier felt.  Again, not as prominent as they had been for D'zer, but the canines were larger and curved to a point.  And his eyes were larger and green, though more of a natural colour than fel-bright.

The rest of him was, again, fairly normal.  Body hair unchanged (no pelt for him it seemed) though his skin was shaded green, darker in some places, barely noticeable in others.  And when he looked at his hands they had no claws, though the nails themselves were thicker, longer and sharper.  "Well, not too bad I suppose," he said, twisting to look down at his back.  "No tail.  That's a relief."

The young woman healer handed him a short robe which he slipped on and tied at the waist with a cloth belt.  "I want to see him."

Antonidas frowned.  "I am not certain…"

"I am.  Take me to him."

 

Khadgar sensed a faint familiar scent on the air and he turned towards the door as it opened, and Anduin stepped inside.

His breath shuddered in relief as his heart thudded.  _He's alive.  He's alright._   He stood, eyes wide as Anduin walked closer and he waited, wondering.  _Will he hate me?  Will he forgive me?_

He looked so good, tall and strong, dressed in a short soft robe tied at the waist, bare footed, unarmed, unarmoured.  Not as altered as Khadgar feared he would be, but enough to have healed the injury done to him.  Anduin stopped just outside the screen and they look at each other for a long, silent moment.

"Thank you."

Khadgar blinked and shook, emotions running through his veins like fire.  "Thank me?  I nearly killed you.  You should be cursing me."

Anduin's lip quirked up at one corner in that familiar way that made his heart clench.  "Considering the number of times you've saved me in one way or another, I don't think we are anywhere near even.  And you didn’t do it deliberately…"

"Well, I did actually.  Just not consciously."

"Not the time for semantics, but it is time for us to get out of here."  Anduin turned towards Antonidas, who'd followed him into the room.  "Release him."

He saw the old man hesitate and his eyes were dark with suspicion.  "Are you certain?"

"Yes.  Never more so.  On my responsibility, Archmage.  We need to get home."

 

 _Home._  

Home, in his heart, would always be Stormwind.  But Stormwind was in ruins, destroyed by the orcs and it would be a very long time before he could go back there.  Lordaeron has never seemed entirely the same.  It was nice enough, and its people had taken the survivors of poor, wrecked Stormwind in and given them a place but still…  It just wasn’t quite right.

A mage teleported Anduin and Khadgar to Anduin's rooms to save them having to travel through the city.  The Lord Commander had dressed in his familiar armour and gone off to report to Varian and his sister, and then Terenas.  Khadgar spent the time organising a bath to wash away the stresses of the previous days.  There was an odd echo of discomfit in submerging himself in the tub – D'zer had never liked getting wet all over… _bad bad bad!..._ and although it was good to be clean, he suspected he would never enjoy a bath the same way again.  Warm water against skin felt very different to warm water against heavy, sticky fur.

Once clean, he searched around for something to wear.  The lower, slightly longer fur might cover his groin, but while that had been fine for D'zer, it wasn’t at all fine for Khadgar.  He located a pair of Anduin's leather training pants in a drawer, tore off the legs above the knee and used a belt to secure it to his waist.  It would have to do until a tailor could arrange something more suitable.

And then he sat and stared at the wall as he waited for Anduin's return, and thought.  And the first thing that occurred to him was magic.

_Do I still have it?  Am I still a mage?_

Well, there was one way to find out.  He stood in the centre of the room, closed his eyes, concentrated and spoke the words and gestures for a small arcane explosion. 

There was a moment of hesitation, the sense of _pushing_ and then – **crash**!

"What the hell!"

He swung around to see Anduin lying on the other side of the entry, covered by bits of broken door.  And looking decidedly unhappy.

"Light, I'm sorry!  I didn’t hear you come in.  I was testing my magic."  He grinned as he leapt forward and pulled Anduin up.  "It worked!"

"So I saw.  You nearly blew me through into the next room."

Khadgar danced around, feeling lighter and happier than he had in a very long time.  "He didn’t destroy it, didn’t destroy me, and I didn’t kill you.  We both survived him."

As he spun around he found himself pressed against Anduin's chest.  One hand was behind his back, the other around his head, fingers stroking his ear.  Khadgar's eyes slid closed in pleasure and he rumbled a satisfied sound.  It felt so good and he leant forward, pressing his face against Anduin's.  "You make me purr," he whispered, licking the warm skin of Anduin's throat.

"And you," his lover said, as the hand at his back slid lower, "almost make me wish I had a tail."

Khadgar laughed and then he found it was quite easy, and very pleasant, to kiss his lover despite their mutual sets of rather sharp teeth…

 


	14. Epilogue

_ Many years later _

Standing still and looking serene and mature took a great deal of control.  It was a significant moment of a critical time – the forces of the Army of Light were once more making contact with the peoples of Azeroth.

It had been a very long time.

When the senior members of the Army of the Light teleported aboard the Vindicaar, Khadgar's eyes were immediately drawn to the tall figure standing beside Turalyon.  His heart did a double thump of wonder and pleasure and he clenched his hands together to stop himself from moving forward.  He watched, silent and rigidly still, as a pair of green eyes scanned the waiting crowd and then came to rest on him.

Despite protocols and courtesies, Anduin Lothar pushed past the waiting welcoming committee and strode across the deck to stand in front of him.  And he looked into the face of the man he'd thought dead for so long, and who he'd found was alive a relatively short time ago.

The looked at each other as the noise and crowd all faded into the background.  Anduin looked wonderful; his dark hair was streaked with silver but his body was firm and strong even if the hands that reached out to take his shook.

"Khadgar."  He said the word and then seemed to falter, as if he didn’t quite know what to say or do next.

"Lord Commander.  You are looking very well."

There it was, that familiar quirk of the lips into a crooked smile.  "Lord Commander?  That's terribly formal.  Should I call you Archmage?"

"You can call me whatever you like."  He stood and waited, hesitant, longing, as one of the large hands slid up his arm and stroked behind his ear.  Khadgar's eyes half-closed in pleasure as his head tipped sideways.  "I'm not sure…this probably isn’t the place for…"

"Tell me," Anduin whispered into his other ear, "do you still drool if you have your spine rubbed at the base of your tail?"

His eyes flashed open and he grinned, rubbing his cheek against Anduin's.  "That's wildly inappropriate, Lord Commander…but the fact is, nobody has done that for a very long time."

 _Such a long time._   There had never been anyone for Khadgar since the day he thought Anduin was lost to him, when he and Turalyon and Alleria and all the others had disappeared.  He'd told himself that they were dead and lost but a tiny flicker of hope had burned in his heart over the years.  And here it was, that hopeless longing rekindled at the touch of Anduin's hand.

He slipped one hand beneath Anduin's arm and turned away.  "Why don't you join me in my room for a cup of tea and…whatever.  You can tell me all about your adventures and I'll tell you about mine and we can take it from there."  He paused, looking up into the watchful green eyes, suddenly uncertain.  "If you, that is, if you wish to?"

"I would like nothing better, my D'zer.  I've wished for your company beside me for many years now.  The Burning Legion can wait on my attendance."

They walked down the ramp together, leaving the others behind them, to make a new beginning.


End file.
